First report of the brine shrimp Artemia (Branchiopoda: Anostraca) from Bazangan Lake, Iran

Artemia has been recorded in thalassohaline and athalassohaline saline habitats from all over the world (Persoone & Sorgeloos, 1980) and is widely used in aquaculture as a food source for crustaceans and fish (Leger et al., 1986). The occurrence of wild Artemia populations from 17 hypersaline environments such as saline lakes, lagoons and salty rivers, distributed over 12 provinces in Iran were previously reported (Abatzopoulos et al., 2006) We added parthenogenetic Artemia from Bazangan lake as 18th natural habitat in the country (Fig. 1). All Iranian Artemia populations are parthenogenetic except one bisexual population namely Artemia urmiana from Urmia Lake (Agh, 2006). The historical record of existence of Artemia dates back to 982, more than one thousand years ago, from Urmia Lake, by an unknown Iranian geographer (Asem, 2008).The parthenogenesis populations have been reported from Lagoons around Urmia Lake, Urmia and Fesendooz, West Azerbaijan province; Lagoons around Urmia Lake Dasht-E-Tabriz, East Azerbaijan province; Maharlu Lake Shiraz, Bakhtegan Lake Shiraz and Tashk Lake Shiraz, Fars province; Incheh Lake Gonbad and Shor Lake Gonbad, Golestan province; Varmal catchment Zabul, Sistan and Baluchestan province; Mighan Lake Arak, Central province; Qom Salt Lake Qom and Houze Sultan Lake Qom, Qom province; Gaav Khooni Lake Hasan Abad, Isfahan province; Kale Shoor Gonabad, Razavi Khorasan province; Kale Shoor Khorram Abad, Lorestan province; Nough Kerman, Kerman province; Shurabil Lake (extinct) Ardabil, Ardabil province; Kale Shoor Hashtgerd Karaj, Alborz province (Agh, 2006; Abatzopoulos et al., 2006). Several studies have been done about the geology, biology and ecology of Bazangan Lake (Adabi & Mohammadzadeh, 1998; Khoshbakht, 1998 & Gholami et al., 2007). Bazangan Lake is located at N 36°18.48', E 060°28.53' between Mashhad and Sarakhs in north east of Iran (Fig. 1). Its surface area is 690,000 m(69 hectare), altitude 860 m and maximum depth 12 m in high water years (Gholami et al., 2007; Behroozi Rad, 2007). Bazangan wetland is an important habitat for birds, especially as a nesting site for some native and migrating species (Behroozi Rad, 2007). Artemia is the major food source for these species. During a regularly annual sampling, the brine shrimp Artemia was observed for the first time in Bazangan Lake and some water characteristics were also recorded for environmental monitoring. Plankton net (100 μm mesh size) was towed through the water for sampling cyst and adult Artemia in November 2015. The presence or absences of males were carefully recorded with visual inspection in Artemia population. Physical and chemical water characteristics like temperature, TDS, pH and electrical conductivity were determined with HANNA HI 98129 Pocket multimeter-combo Archive of SID